Top Java books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Java books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Java

Understanding the concepts of Java starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Head First Design Patterns Elisabeth Robson

This book shows you the patterns that matter, when to use them and why, how to apply them to your own designs, and the object-oriented design principles on which they're based. Join hundreds of thousands of developers who've improved their object-oriented design skills through Head First Design Patterns.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Just Spring Madhusudhan Konda

This example-driven book for Java developers delves into the framework's basic features, as well as complex concepts such as containers. You'll learn how Spring makes Java Messaging Service easier to work with, and how its support for Hibernate helps you work with data persistence and retrieval.

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Java Performance

Coding and testing are often considered separate areas of expertise. In this comprehensive guide, author and Java expert Scott Oaks takes the approach that anyone who works with Java should be equally adept at understanding how code behaves in the JVM, as well as the tunings likely to help its performance.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Java Performance: The Definitive Guide: Getting the Most Out of Your Code Scott Oaks

In this comprehensive guide, author and Java expert Scott Oaks takes the approach that anyone who works with Java should be equally adept at understanding how code behaves in the JVM, as well as the tunings likely to help its performance.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Java generics and collections

The Java Generics programming is introduced in J2SE 5 to deal with type-safe objects. It makes the code stable by detecting the bugs at compile time. Before generics, we can store any type of objects in the collection, i.e., non-generic. Now generics force the java programmer to store a specific type of objects.

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Java Performance Binu John

Java™ Performance covers the latest Oracle and third-party tools for monitoring and measuring performance on a wide variety of hardware architectures and operating systems. The authors present dozens of tips and tricks you’ll find nowhere else. You’ll learn how to construct experiments that identify opportunities for optimization, interpret the results, and take effective action. You’ll also f…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Additional Java Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Java, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Thinking in Java

Thinking in Java (ISBN 978-0131872486) is a book about the Java programming language, written by Bruce Eckel and first published in 1998. Prentice Hall published the 4th edition of the work in 2006. The book represents a print version of Eckel's “Hands-on Java” seminar.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Core Java Cay S. Horstmann

With hundreds of realistic examples, Cay S. Horstmann reveals the most powerful and effective ways to get the job done. This book is written for readers with prior programming experience who are looking for in-depth coverage of the Java language and platform.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Spring in Action

Spring in Action, 5th Edition is the fully updated revision of Manning's bestselling Spring in Action. This new edition includes all Spring 5.0 updates, along with new examples on reactive programming, Spring WebFlux, and microservices. You'll also find the latest Spring best practices, including Spring Boot for application setup and configuration.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Java For Dummies

The book starts with an overview of computer programming and builds from there; it explains the software you need, walks you through writing your own programs, and introduces you to a few of the more-complex aspects of programming in Java.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Beginning Programming With Java for Dummies

This book includes practice questions and exercises to help reinforce your understanding of Java. Before you know it, you'll be using variables, values, and types, and you'll understand loops, objects, and classes. Start programming in Java and creating your own projects right away!

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

Refactoring is about improving the design of existing code. It is the process of changing a software system in such a way that it does not alter the external behavior of the code, yet improves its internal structure. With refactoring you can even take a bad design and rework it into a good one.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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